Surely there's a way to get the same message across without so much hyperbole. It's just beef!
Reading through this thread, others have also been rubbed the wrong way. The approach they're using is to tell you you're wrong over and over, but in a saccharine "that's okay squirt, you're doing your best!" kind of way.
Like, here's another question: "What is the best way to store hard cheese?
A) In a cool, dark place like your pantry B) In an airtight bag C) Wrapped in parchment paper and foil D) Exposed to the open air of your fridge"
If you answer (A) it's wrong, because nowadays fridges have more constant temperature than pantries. Okay, let's try (D) since it's the only answer that refers to a fridge... nope, that would dry it out. It's (C), which doesn't refer to a fridge at all.
It's question after question like this, with a snarky little spawn-of-Clippy giving you an "ACKKshoowly" about a badly worded question or something that's really a matter of opinion. And in the end, if you unlock enough silly quizzes, they might deign to tell you how to actually cook a hamburger.
Wow, that seems especially bad if the goal is to help get people into home cooking. I eat a lot of cheeses, and practically none of them are stored in parchment paper and foil!
I'm willing to believe that might be the optimal way to store cheese, but is it how basically anyone at home stores cheese?!
It seems counterproductive to insist to novice home cooks that to "properly" make a cheeseburger that they store their cheese in the same exacting standards as a cheesemonger? This seems like it will work against the goal of making home cooking less intimidating and more approachable.
...What? What does that mean? I mean, I guess it's called "Spaghetti and meatballs" and not "spaghetti and pasta" for a reason? Most dishes use specific pastas for their specific qualities with regards to how they absorb sauce and things like that. False?
"Wrong! You can make any pasta dish with any pasta! Just because the recipe calls for spaghetti doesn't mean you can't use fettuccine!"
Ok? What does this have to do with anything?
I'm imagining it being 6:30 and the user is already hungry and can't even open the recipe yet because he's working through these insane questions lol.
Crap, what year was this training written in? The correct answers keep changing, and it will talk to me like an idiot if I guess wrong.
If you are not a big cheese eater, like me, the correct answer is cut of the amount you intend to eat, wrap the rest well in cling wrap and put the rest in the freezer.
We created this app to focus on teaching beginners, so the content assumes no prior knowledge (for now). It's clearly eliciting strong reactions from experienced cooks, who have many opinions about how to do things.
But put yourself in their shoes: if you wanted to learn how to make a Botan shrimp nigiri (perhaps that's new to you), how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi, etc? We hope this model can apply.
> they might deign to tell you how to actually cook a hamburger.
The dirty secret is that by the time you get to the end of the quizzes, you'll already know how to cook the hamburger. The recipe is ridiculously elementary.
The thing that stands out to me is context. A lot of your questions are presented as if they are context-free, but they are highly contextual both when they are written and when they are presented.
E.g. The meat spoilage question was written from the context of purchasing meat, not checking meat in your fridge. Your egg questions are written from an American perspective. That's fine if you know it and present it in the context it was written in.
When you rip those from the context they were written in, and present them bare, it's confusing and sometimes can mean something incorrect.
The other part is the recipe itself is contextual, but the knowledge graph isn't picking up some nuance. Hard cheese doesn't melt well, so why are you bringing up how to store it? It seems like you're grabbing the "cheese" node and whatever questions come with it. Maybe you can fix that by specifying "soft cheese."
Your knowledge graph needs to be truly context free, and/or it needs to contextualize its elements correctly for the recipe (and culture). Right now you're not really doing either.
I learned about lactofermentation, it's really easy and opens a huge range of things.
There is so much wealth and context when it comes to food. Every region, culture etc has their own ways.
Like a sibling says to store pieces of cheese that you won’t use in a freezer.
I can imagine that framing all of the questions in the right context all the time is hard. But now it seems to be a bit too simple “know-it-all”.
I typed "botan shrimp nigiri" into Google and got detailed videos showing me how to prepare, fillet, cook the shrimp. Most full recipe videos explain side bits about what to buy and things like that.
> The dirty secret is that by the time you get to the end of the quizzes, you'll already know how to cook the hamburger. The recipe is ridiculously elementary.
Here's where I think there's a disconnect.
Why would someone not start with a recipe which shows most of this and then look up the bits they are missing?
You seem to be then targeting someone who wants a broader base understanding of cooking at home, so why would a basic cooking course not be the structure?
> how would you learn about sushi rice, how to buy live shrimp, how to fillet the shrimp, preparing wasabi
Buy pre-filleted frozen shrimp and ready made wasabi and tips on taking regular rice to a sushi rice quality. The goal for a beginner should be the easiest path to success and with cooking that is a meal that was safely prepared. Then build on that later - like if they like spicy these are some things to try.
More specifically, the beef complaint is legitimate. I have lost count of how many times I have bought things from the grocery store that went bad well before the best-before date. It isn't often, but it happens - and teaching home cooks food safety absolutely must include this! Dutifully trusting the best-before date with no sanity check for how the ingredient should feel/smell/taste is a recipe for food poisoning!
I don't see where I wrote this at all? If you're arguing for passion, great, but I guess I would at least try not to simultaneously make a counterpoint for the clinical-side benefits of some good ol' accuracy...